A Thought About Horror Games

Now, I don't intend to either diagnose or cure what I think the issue/trouble/problem with video games that fall into the survival horror genre, I just want to talk about them, partly because of two of the games that I'm playing right now are Cry of Fear and Dead Space.

The first game I played that fell within the survival horror genre, probably along with a lot of other gamers was Resident Evil on the PS1 when I lived with Dr. Potts, The Jestre and handful of others in a pseudo-stereotypical 1st College Apartment-type setting back in 1999.  It was an amazing game and very different than most games I had played up to that point.  (I was able to get the ending where you don't fight Tyrant and thought that was an absolutely brilliant ending to such a tension filled game; very anti-climactic but such a departure from stereotypical/Hollywood ending.  This was before I found out there were multiple endings).

Now, rather than go through a history of all the survival-horror, fps-horror, adventure-horror, et cetera games that I've played, I want to get down to brass tacks.  I have found, for myself at least, that horror games run a pretty high risk of becoming frustrating, annoying boxes of frustration.  There have been games that I love that have dipped into the pool of frustration.  Take Resident Evil 4 (A game I enjoyed but didn't love mind you) and the knife fight with Krauser.  That battle was all about reaction time and not much else.  There was some muscle memory involved, but which button to press changed between a couple options with each playthrough.  One misstep and you had to start over.  I appreciate boss fights, but this fight alone took me out of the horror atmosphere from everything that came before.

More recently in Amnesia: The Dark Descent, in the second area where you're wading through water and on boxes, attempting to avoid an invisible creature who's stalking you, I very quickly became frustrated.  Most due to the fact that I had run out of oil for the lamp (which was it's own frustration throughout the game) and I couldn't tell if I was backtracking through the area or if I was heading in the correct direction.

I get it though.  Video games are supposed to be challenging, that is why difficulty levels exist, but not in all games.  Often times, harder difficulty levels means that you will find less ammunition and the enemies take more damage.  In Resident Evil 2, if you play on Easy, you start off with a sub-machine gun with infinite ammunition.  Infinite ammunition in any Resident Evil game immediately takes away any sense of fear that the creatures are trying to have the gamer experience.  At the moment, in Dead Space, I am playing the game on Medium, which I feel is about the average person would play the game on.  I could easily see how Hard difficulty would obviously make the game harder, but for myself, it would also mean having to restart frequently and conserving my ammunition to the point where I would reload if I miss-fire because I am wasting a much needed resource.  I don't want to play that kind of game and have that mentality when playing.  No, I do not want to be spoon fed bullets so that I don't fear like I'm constantly running out, but I also do not want to play a game where there is an allotment of bullets for specific enemies.

In Doom 3, I played through the game on Marine, which is one above Recruit and then below Veteran and Nightmare.  I was able to play the game very successfully (without the flashlight attachment) on Marine with the exception of the fight between either between two Hell Knights or the Guadrian, I can't remember which.  After many attempts, I handed the game over to Vorlynx, who has much more FPS experience than I.  It was something that brought my enjoyment of the game to a standstill, but I thankfully had someone who knew their shit and could get me through to the other side.  The rest of the game went well.

One game that I had to give up on due to missing an "optional" weapon that turns out is pretty damn important, was Dementium: The Ward for the DS.  In Chapter 12: The Cleaver's Return, there's an area where it is beyond beneficial to have the buzz saw.  There are multiple banshees flying at you and the buzz saw is necessary if you don't want to die, which I kind of don't.  I had to give up on that game (at least for the time being) as backtracking is not an option.

The last game I want to bring up is Slender: The Eight Pages. It's a simple game that is pretty difficult to complete, but I can only play it two or three times before giving up.  Not because I get so frustrated and only being able to find four or five pages, but because after a couple of plays, the fear of being spotted by the Slender Man wears off, and I don't want to play the game if I'm no longer afraid.  The game loses what makes it fun to play.

In these games, there always feels like there is a point when the horror becomes routine and not scary anymore.  For me, this happens when the game become so difficult that I'm not experiencing a scary and intense story, but playing a difficult video game.  Playing a game on Hard/Insane/Nightmare/Jedi, as I can see it, doesn't make the game scarier, but only serves to give bragging rights, which I guess makes achievements and trophies so desirable.

So give me a horror game and I'll play it, partly because I enjoy being scared without the fear of actually having my body quartered and partly because I enjoy the "fear of the unknown."

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Filth of Mankind

http://www.precursorgames.com/shadowoftheeternals/

First Impressions: Cry of Fear (PC)

I'm one of those people that does judge a book by it's cover.  Does that make me proud that on some level I judge things solely based on their appearance, I guess you could say so, but there have been times when being of that mentality has paid off.  Recently on Steam's front page, down in the Featured section, I saw a thumbnail of a gloved hand trailing against a dank looking wall with the title Cry of Fear looking like the title above this paragraph.  Below said thumbnail was "THIRD-PARTY."  The combination of the lack of price and thumbnail intrigued me to click and find out more about this game.

As it turns out, Cry of Fear was originally a mod for Half-Life 1 developed by Team Psykallar.  Now available through Steam through their Greenlight release series, Cry of Fear is it's own stand alone game, without requiring Half-Life 1 in order to play.  And, and AND, the game is free.  Yes, a free game.  You're welcome to donate to the company, kind of like one of those Humble Indie Bundle or Indie Royal Bundles, but you can play the game first.

And play it I have.  At least for about an hour anyway before deciding that I should stop, write out what I have here to say then head to bed for the night/morning.  I'm going to have pretty awesome dreams too if I don't wake up screaming, although to give the game credit, I was warned ahead of time.  Resident Evil was the first game I saw that had a disclaimer before the game started warning of impending violence and gore, which read as follows, "Warning This game contains strong language and scenes of explicit violence and gore."  Maybe these were more common on PC games, but little 23 year old me hadn't been exposed to too many M rated games; I had some, just not many.  The disclaimer at the beginning of Cry of Fear however, takes the warning up a notch with, "This game contains violence and gore, and can cause fear, depression, heart failure and suicide.  Users and viewers discretion is advised."

Now that's a warning if I've ever read one prior to playing a game before and for whatever reason, I did not feel that it came across as the developers stroking their own horns.  Sure they are to some extent, but to me, it sounded more original than saying that "This game will make you shit bricks and cry for your mommy.  Pussy."  It was all about the language used.

Back to the game.

Cry of Fear is an FPS horror game set somewhere, possibly somewhere in Scandinavia although I don't think the actual setting will be too important.  All it means to me so far is that I can't read any of the newspapers or graffiti that is used as set decorations.  That's pretty much all I know about the setting of the game.  I have come across some enemies who have managed to kill me a few times, which may have also contributed to deciding to write out my thoughts earlier than I may have originally planned.  So, the game looks like this:

Yes, the graphics are a little grainy, which could be an artistic choice or it could be because the game was originally a mod from a 1998 PC game.  Either way, I feel that the graininess adds to the overall atmosphere, which is pretty flippin' creepy.

The game was easily controlled with standard WASD keys and I was able to invert the mouse, which I am always thankful for.  I tinkered around editing some of the other keys such as crouch, but everything else felt like standard FPS PC controls.  At the present, I only have two equippable but each of those items has duel functions, something I haven't seen a lot of since Perfect Dark and something I feel should have been almost required at this point, especially for FPS games.  Your cellphone acts as both a phone and as a flashlight and your knife can either stab or slash; I don't know if there's a tactical difference but I'm sure I'll find out soon enough.

The music, from what I've heard so far is pretty standard fare for a horror game in that it's mainly background ambient music intended to set the mood.  I haven't come across any areas where the music cuts out entirely as sometimes happens in the Resident Evil games.  The environment noise is very well done.  The voice acting isn't great and seems kind of stilted at times, there always seem to be bright yellow subtitles permanently on, although I typically have subtitles off, so in my case I find it a little distracting.

That all being said, I highly recommend trying this game out if you like either FPS and/or horror (including survival horror) games.  It's free after all, but that doesn't mean you don't have to show the developers some love in return for their hard work.  Any game that can cause me to jump in my seat and make me sit back from the keyboard in momentary fear is the type of game that I personally would love to see more of.  

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Feeling Good

P.S.  
***SPOILER - THE WINDOW***
I will give one pseudo-spoiler, but as it happens near the very beginning of the game, it won't be much of one, but more like a walkthrough/hint/tip.  Once you take control of the character, you will eventually come to a window.  Now, this window is a bloody damn pain in the ass to get through.  I don't know if it was an oversight or if it's intended to teach you how to jump through windows, but the point is, I spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure out what I was doing wrong.  For me, I was had to crouch first, then jump while moving forward towards the window.  I don't know if there's an easier way as two of the youtube videos I watched don't actually explain what they're doing.  But, just take your time, and you'll make it through that window.  Only to wish about a minute later that you could find your way back to it, board it up an build a thick-ass cement wall so nothing will come through it ever again.  Yourself included.